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Muggle parents keen to follow Harry Potter's lead

Article date: 21 December 2001

Hogwarts school of wizardry and witchcraft undoubtedly fires theimaginations of children and adults alike and research by NorwichUnion has shown that 60% of parents would consider sending theirchildren to boarding school.*

Surprisingly 10% more men than women would be prepared to packtheir kids off to a boarding school.*

"As part of our study into the public's perceptions of wealth wediscovered that sending children to private schools was one of thebiggest signs of defining whether someone had money", said, RobDavies, brand manager at Norwich Union.

"When questioned people felt that in order to fund a boardingschool education they would need a household income of around£46,000*. Over 80%* of people don't know what it costs to sendtheir children to boarding school.* Unlike Harry, not everyone hasan account at the goblin's bank - Gringotts."

But with boarding school fees starting at around £3,400** a termyou no longer have to be a financial wizard to fund a privateeducation for your child. As for an increasing number of people itis possible to fund a child's private education through simplyrecognising that there are more effective ways of managing yourmoney. Such as doing it online, as more and more people arediscovering the wealth of information to be found on the web."

Davies continued: "Our research shows that 70%*** of onlineBritons describe themselves as financially comfortable. With only2% saying they're struggling. So for the majority with some goodfinancial planning private education is not unrealistic."

Across the country three per cent of parents currently sendtheir children to boarding schools; although there are significantregional variations - in Wales the number is more than twice thenational average - 8 per cent, while in Scotland the figure dropsto just 1%.

Norwich Union's online personal finance service was launchedin May 2001 and provides a comprehensive range of free,interactive financial planning tools and impartial money guides,designed to help people make better financial decisions by makingcomplex money matters simple.

A fund supermarket ISA and share dealing service are the firstin a range of products that will subsequently include a number ofbanking products.

Norwich Union is the UK’s largest insurer offering acomprehensive range of long-term savings and general insuranceproducts.

Norwich Union’s news releases are available on thisinternet site

A selection of images are available from the Norwich UnionNewscast site at www.newscast.co.uk